Most intelligent bowlers atm and in history

[Hurricane]

I have always enjoyed having a yarn with the spearhead opening bowler in any team I have played for. Without question they are always the smartest guy in the team when it comes to cricketing nous. Batsman have a different form of intelligence, bowling intelligence is more about man on man interplay. They have studied you in the nets as a batsman and know more about your batting than you probably know about your game.
You can be a thick batsman e.g. David Warner and score runs (won't be apologising for that comment).
But it is extremely difficult to be an elite bowler and have average intelligence.

Here are some of my current views on the intelligent bowlers I have spent watching around the traps.

My ranking of the Kiwis is:

Tim Southee
Daylight
Daylight
Trent Boult
Corey Anderson
Neil Wagner
Daylight
Mark Craig

Some observations of the Aussies

Ryan Harris (yes I know he has retired) at the very top of this list.
Daylight
Peter Siddle (would bowl to a plan and play a role)
Daylight
Mitchel Johnson (understands he is a one dimensional bowler and uses his assets to his best advantage. Has thought about how to be effective. Loses points for no nuances to his approach).
Mitchel Starc (Learning his craft at the top level - too soon to say)

The English
Stuart Broad (have stuart listed first as he moves the ball less than our Jimmy but has been able to be extremely effective. Best English bowler at bowling to a plan and possibly the best bowler in the world at bowling to specific plans. He never gives up on a plan. He just keeps going with it till it pays dividends).
James Anderson (uncanny ability to know when to bowl the inswinger. Never overdoes it. And uses the outswinger as his main weapon).
Daylight
Whatever hack they put on as 3rd seamer

Perhaps that is enough for an opening post. How do you rate the current bowlers in the world for intelligence. And how do you rate some of those from history.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

bowling intelligence is more about man on man interplay..

I've been bowling for years, and I never knew it was so homoerotic. Maybe that's why I've been on a rapid decline in recent years. Time to dust off the Frankie Howerd impressions, oooh yes.

 

[Flem274*]

anderson definitely has the most nous of the poms.

steyn the best in the world. he's the best at everything really.

 

[cnerd123]

AshWIN is good

 

[jcas0167]

Perhaps that is enough for an opening post. How do you rate the current bowlers in the world for intelligence. And how do you rate some of those from history.

I would rate Boult at least on a par wtih Southee, simply because of the speed in which Boult adapted to ODI's and quickly established himself as one of the best exponents around in the WC.

Historically, I think Martin Crowe thought Malcolm Marshall was a particularly clever bowler who could vary his style depending on conditions. Richard Hadlee was very analytical. Shane Warne seemed to quickly size batsmen up & could play mind games with them. Akram struck me as a pretty smart bowler, the way he could make use of the crease and mix things up.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Loved watching Warne execute his plans. There's a great video of him in the Big Bash talking to the commentators about how he thought McCullum was premeditating the sweep and he felt a slider could trap him. Did the exact that next ball.

McGrath did the same thing to Warner once too.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Best thing about Warne though was watching him fool batsmen into thinking Warne was bowling better than he actually was. There were so many times when Warne wasn't actually causing too many problems but he'd mind**** the batsman into thinking he was in trouble.

 

[kingkallis]

Warne used his brain more than his wrist. Excellent bowler.

Most intelligent bowler right now: Dale Steyn. The way he set up Sachin, Vaughan, Laxman, Clarke was phenomenal.

 

[AldoRaine18]

Wasim Akram. The most intelligent bowler I've seen. With the variety he had, it was a sight to behold him setting up batsmen.

 

[morgieb]

How does a discussion of ATG intelligent bowlers not mention McGrath?

 

[Son Of Coco]

Yeah, his set-up of Warner in that Twenty20 match years back was pretty special.

 

[NZTailender]

Warne with the greatest setup of all time ftr

 

[Teja.]

Praveen Kumar was a very smart bowler. He was extremely skilled with swing but had limited pace so realized he needed to know exactly what he was doing every ball to not get hit around and succeeded at it.

 

[NZTailender]

Praveen Kumar was a very smart bowler. He was extremely skilled with swing but had limited pace so realized he needed to know exactly what he was doing every ball to not get hit around and succeeded at it.

On that note, Ajit Agarker once realised after being the fastest bowler to 50 ODI wickets (or was it 100) he should become crap otherwise he'd never get a cult CW following.

 

[Zinzan]

Most intelligent spinner I've seen - S K Warne

Most intelligent pace-man - R J Hadlee

 

[TheJediBrah]

Absolutely no doubt who leads this list in history

Shane Warne then daylight to the next best.

 

[Zinzan]

Absolutely no doubt who leads this list in history

Shane Warne then daylight to the next best.

Don't think Hadlee was daylight behind tbh, especially considering his plans for opposition batsmen were almost as precise as those hatched these days with all the video analysis and technical people. Hadlee did most of that stuff on his lonesome.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

Wasim probably the smartest of them all. And not to forget his tutor, Imran.

 

[Zinzan]

Wasim probably the smartest of them all. And not to forget his tutor, Imran.

Good shout those 2, although marginally behind Warne & Hadlee for me.

The best I can think of (excluding older players.)

Warne
Hadlee
Lillee
Imran
Wasim
Murali
Swann
Anderson
McGrath
Steyn
Pollock
Alderman
Vaas
Bond
Vettori (with limited talent vs. the others)

 

[morgieb]

I wonder who the dumbest is.

Lee circa early 2000's has a case.